


Good Becomes Great

by orphan_account



Series: Attack on Avengers [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: LONG FIC IS HERE FINALLY AHAHA, M/M, Marco is Captain America fight me bro, crying constantly, disjointed pov, goodbye friends, obligatory guest appearances from teenaged Ninette, she's only there for the showgirls, the epic lovestory of Jean and Marco, y'know until the train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:16:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2186142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco Bodt is just a kid from Brooklyn who doesn’t know when to run away from a fight. No, really! Well, until his best friend (but really boyfriend) Jean Kirschtein is about to be shipped out to fight nazis in Europe and a mysterious doctor comes up to him with a proposition. Marco, Jean, and the Howling Commandos are gonna raise a little hell and take Hydra out one head at a time. </p><p>"You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?" "Hell no. That little guy from Brooklyn, who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I'm following him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. rebirth

“Marco Bodt!”

There’s your cue. Again. The guy beside you says, “All those guys dying over there, kinda makes you think twice about enlisting, right?”

“Nope.” You don’t have to think about it. It’s really simple, actually- people are dying, you can’t just sit at home safe and sound while there’s bullets flying overseas.

The man up front asks the standard questions about your family, ones you’ve heard every time, and there’s a knot in the pit of your stomach because this is playing out just like it has before. ( _Exposure to TB, parent with diabetes, scarlet and then rheumatic fever_ ) ( _-that was a bad couple of weeks, you were nine years old and you remember your mother stroking your hair away from your face over and over “shhh baby shhh” and your throat hurt all the time and your head hurt more and you remember a couple times hearing Jean at the door asking if he could see you and your mother always said no and he practically crushed you when she let you out of the house finally-_ ) ( _and fatigue and chronic colds and asthma on top of it, you aren’t exactly in peak physical condition._ ) “Just give me a chance. There’s gotta be something you can do.” You say a little desperately, like you have every time.

“I’m doing it. I’m saving your life.”

And there it is. Again. End of story.

You end up going to the movies because you told Jean you were this morning ( _telling him you’re trying to enlist has, historically, not gone well_ ) and there’s this asshole making comments in front of you and of course you get into a fight. Of course. “You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” He asks after about the third crack to the jaw.

You roll your shoulders back, fists up. “I could do this all day.” And then another right hook and yeah, you might stay on the ground for just a second. Just to get your bearings.

“Hey! Pick on somebody your own size.” Three guesses who that is. You manage to get up, rubbing your face, and Jean is looking at you with something a little like frustration and a lot like affection on his face. Par for the course. “Sometimes I think you _like_ getting punched.” He grumbles, reaching out to cup your jaw and squinting at your eyes. “Hey, no concussion. It’s the little miracles.”

You twist your head out of his grip, glaring half-heartedly. “I had him on the ropes.”

He’s less than impressed by your assessment of the situation. “I saw that. You breathing okay?” And then he sees the rejected enlistment form you dropped. “Ah, Jesus, really?” He scoops it up, eyes skimming the details and mouth twisting. “Oh, you’re from Paramus now. Fourth time’s the charm?” And he shakes his head like he cannot _believe_ you even though he must have completely expected this, he’s known you for more than twenty years. “Really? _Jersey_?”

You’d answer, except you’ve noticed that he’s wearing a military uniform. Your stomach sinks to your shoes. “You got your orders?” You’ve been dreading this. He’s not supposed to go over without you.

He shrugs, something desperately angry and helpless flickering over his expression. “Sergeant Jean Kirschtein, 104th. Shipping out tomorrow morning.” He holds up a hand at the same time you open your mouth to say something ( _I should be going with you I should be watching your back I should be able to do this I should I should but I’m not_ ) and he flashes a completely fake smile. “Hey, hey, none of that. It’s my last night, Marco, c’mon.” His arm fits around your shoulders like it always has, and yours comes up around his waist almost against your will. The two of you fit like puzzle pieces, a matched set, and that’s why he’s _not allowed_ to go over to Europe yet because what is he going to do without you and what are you going to do without him?

“Where are we going?” You’re resigned to dropping the subject. It’s his last night, you’re not going to spend it arguing. Jean deserves better than that, even if he doesn’t know it.

He smirks, tossing your latest enlistment form over his shoulder and digging a pamphlet out of his pocket. “The future.”

The future is loud, and crowded, and people keep bumping into you. Jean tugs you from exhibit to exhibit by your sleeve, forcing enthusiasm. You wish he’d stop trying so hard. The head of Ackerman industries is demonstrating a flying car that doesn’t quite work and you just… wander off. ( _You find yourself in a building all about enlistment and why you should and a stupid thing about how you’ll look in a uniform and you aren’t even tall enough for it and you hate that you’re stuck how you are._ ) Jean’ll catch up when he realizes you aren’t behind him.

Sure enough, there’s a shove at your shoulder, an exasperated “C’mon, Marco. You’re actually gonna do this again?” He doesn’t let you respond, stubborn as a mule as always. “They’ll catch you. Worse, they’ll actually take you!”

“I’ve got to try-”

“There are so many other jobs! Important jobs!” No, there aren’t and you know he knows you can’t think of anything important enough to not go over and fight but he still keeps trying to make this point.

The thing is, now you’re getting angry, breathing hard and pushing your hands back through your hair. “What, you want me to collect scrap metal-”

“ _Yes!_ ”

“I’m not gonna sit in a factory-”

“I don’t want-” He doesn’t want you to get hurt but you can’t let him say that because he always ignores himself in these situations, he’s ignoring the fact that he could get himself killed easily and you cannot handle the idea that you won’t have done everything you could to save him if that happens, cannot face the idea of your life without him.

“ _Jean_.” His mouth shuts with a click. “There are men laying down their lives. _You’re_ going over, for god’s sake.”

“Like I have a choice?”

“No, but they won’t take everyone who _wants_ to go over, so guys like you who don’t want any part of it have to go get shot at!”

“They won’t take you because you _won’t come back!_ ” He’s angry, he’s _so_ angry, but he’s scared too so you won’t hold it against him. He shuts down, curling his hands into fists at his sides when he realizes that you’re in public. “We should duke this out at home, we’re making a scene.” He whispers, nodding tersely in the direction of the door and managing not to storm out too fast for you to catch up, probably only out of force of will.

( _You love him. God help you, you love him and it scares you to death._ )

As soon as you’re back to your apartment the two of you drop onto the couch and you just shift until you’re settled into his side. “Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back.” He murmurs into your hair.

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” If your voice wobbles, the two of you ignore it. If his snort sounds a little like a sob, you ignore it.

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

His arm wraps around your shoulders tightly, like he can keep the two of you together through sheer force of will. “Promise me you’ll stay safe, sweetheart."

The two of you fall asleep, and in the morning he ships out, gives you a sarcastic salute and a pained smile on his way out the door. You make it two days before you head back to the enlistment office.

Except, here’s the thing. They tell you to wait and all you can look at is the sign on the wall, _”IT IS ILLEGAL TO FALSIFY ENLISTMENT FORMS”_ and it’s like cold fingers down your back and wow, Jean’s gonna be pissed if you get yourself thrown in jail. That probably counts as something stupid.

And then an old lady bustles into the room with a clipboard. “Hello. Do you want to go to Germany and kill Nazis?” Her accent’s a little thick and very recognizably German. You look at  her blankly for a moment and she blinks and says “Ah, I am rude.” and then her hand’s in your face. “Dr. Langar. Hello.”

You take her hand, very gingerly. “Hi. Where are you from?”

Her face goes blank. “Queens.” She says, deadpan. “Before that, Germany. And Greece, as a little child, but nobody cares about that. Are you uncomfortable with that?” You shake your head, decisively, and she nods, with a grim smile. “Good. Now, answer my question.”

“I don’t want to kill anyone.” ( _You remember bigger kids chasing you through alleyways when you were little you remember how many places in your neighborhood are landmarks because you got beaten up, you remember the guy from the movie theater the day before Jean shipped out._ ) “I don’t like bullies, I don’t care where they’re from.”

She _grins_ , savagely. “I think you will do, Mr. Bodt. Now, which of these forms has your real address?”

You swallow, bite your lip. This is happening. “Brooklyn. I’m from Brooklyn.”

Dr. Langar grabs one of the forms, stamps it. “Congratulations, Marco Bodt from Brooklyn. You have just joined the United States Army.”

_1A_

You made it. You actually made it.

Three days later you head for Camp Lehigh. Everyone else is bigger than you are, and more confident, and the commanding officer for the camp, Pyxis, looks at you like you shouldn’t be there. But Dr. Langar doesn’t look like she has any problem with her decision to bring you into this, and all you being the little guy means is that you’ve gotta work twice as hard.

And you do. You work, you push yourself too hard and spend nights wheezing, you send Jean very brief letters because everything is classified. You get through it.

Pyxis and Dr. Langar are talking and they keep  _l_ _ooking_ at you, you can feel it like spiders on your skin, and then that’s irrelevant- _”GRENADE!”_ \- one casualty is better than dozens- Jean’s gonna hate you for this- oh god you’re gonna die you are _goingtodie-_

“Dummy grenade.”

...Was that a test? You don’t know. You don’t really care. You have dusty training ground dirt in your lungs. You miss your dingy Brooklyn apartment and tawny eyes and the _skritch_ of a pencil sliding over paper, drawing god only knows what. A lot of the time it was you, but you always thought that was ridiculous.

The night before the experimental procedure that’s supposed to make you battle-ready, you mostly plan to re-read letters, trace over the lines of Jean’s swirling scrawl and pretend like you’re not scared of any of this. It’s not hard- you’re good at not acting scared. Show fear and they’ll know what makes you tick. Stop fighting and they’ll never pull back. Start running and they’ll never let you stop.

Dr. Langar bustles into the barracks with a bottle of schnapps, hair reminding you of nothing so much as steel wool and glasses almost falling off of her face. “Hello.” She says simply, pouring the liquor into cups and placing one in your hand. “I have come to answer questions and drink myself stupid. Ask me what you like.”

You hesitate. And then. “Why me?”

She looks at you steadily, and then, in a flat tone, tells you about the science that she was recruited to do for the Nazis, about the family that they threatened, about the ocean she fled over. “The serum enhances everything. The body, the brain, the _heart_. If a man has corruption in his soul, it is like feeding a fire, but the opposite holds true also. Bad, becomes worse.” She leans forward, pokes you in the chest. “But _good_ , becomes _great_. I saw you in a propaganda office- with your soldier friend? And I _knew_. This is why.”

You try to cover your flush at the mention of your _soldier friend_ ( _you and Jean have never been something so simple_ ) by downing the drink, but there’s a strangled sound and a hand reaching for the glass, which you hand over, feeling a little bit baffled. “What I am doing! Procedure tomorrow, no fluids!” Dr. Langar says, before promptly swallowing both drinks.

And then it’s the next day and you’re being shoved into a capsule and having serum and vita-rays pumped into your system and it _hurts_ like nothing you’ve ever felt, muscles and bones _pulling_ and _stretching_ and _twisting_ but you can take it you can take it you can take-

You can take it.

You-

_You can take it._

And then it’s over.

“Mr. Bodt-”

“Marco? Marco!”

“Mr. Bodt some que-”

“Back, you animals, honestly!”

And your hands are up to ward them off and there are some government bigwigs looking stunned and Pyxis looking smug and unfathomable and Dr. Langar’s smile is wide and bright and Mr. Ackerman is smirking, “Son of a _bitch_ , it worked.”

“How do you feel?”

“Taller.” It’s a reflexive joke, but really, you feel. So much better. You just- the world is in vibrant color and you can hear everything and you can breathe and you feel like you could run forever and ever and move mountains and you have never approached feeling this strong. ( _But there’s also the fact that you feel like your entire body is three sizes too big and it takes just the smallest amount of time longer to respond and a movement that used to do one thing now does a more amplified version and it’s dizzying, nauseating, you don’t know how long it’s gonna take to get used to this._ )

And then there’s an explosion and a couple of gunshots and Dr. Langar goes down and the serum is stolen.

So, there’s that.

You kneel down, see if there’s anything you can do for the doctor, despite the fact that you know, instinctively, that there isn’t, your mom was a nurse, you know what wounds aren’t survivable and a bullet hole in the chest falls under that category, odds of dying increase exponentially with each one, and there’s a wrinkled finger poking you in the chest, and then she’s dead.

And you’re up and chasing the shooter before you’re conscious of it, with your too-big body feeling clumsy but fast enough to make up for it and your insides made of steel.


	2. rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You his boy, then? Marco, I mean."

When you fish a German spy out of the river and the last bottle of supersoldier serum crashes against the ground and breaks, you think things are only gonna get worse from here. When the spy crunches a cyanide pill and whispers “Heil Hydra” before he foams at the mouth and dies, you know you’re right.

They bring you back to the base with your heart in your throat and your stomach in your shoes and sit you down, take a few pints of blood. That’s the only hope for recreating the serum, the blood running through your new and improved veins, and you just stare at the wall blankly and try not to think. You miss when things were normal. You miss home. You miss Jean. ( _Although those are kinda absolutely the same thing._ ) You are in way over your head and you don’t know what to do.

“You’re not going on the front lines.” Pyxis says, and that is _it_ , you open your mouth to object, stand up, and he doesn’t loom over you anymore which is weird but good because if you’re about to start an argument you shouldn’t be really disadvantaged, but Pyxis raises a hand. “I needed an army, but all we have now is you. I’m sorry, son, but you aren’t enough.” And then he leaves before you can formulate your response and you’re _fuming_ and _miserable_ and damn it, damn it all.

And then a senator comes up to you, puts an arm around your shoulders like he’s family and it makes you _squirm_. “Say, kid, you don’t belong in a lab. I have a better plan. How’d you like to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war?”

The most important battlefield of the war, you find out _after_ you agree, is propaganda. Great. Not that there’s anything wrong with stage-punching a guy in a bad Hitler costume, or the showgirls, ( _you get to know all of them, all of their lives and motivations, it feels a little bit like you’re not alone in the universe_ ) or touring the country and finally seeing something that isn’t the city or Jersey, or talking to the kids- that’s your favorite part, how kids’ eyes light up when they see Captain America.

But it’s _exhausting_ and sometimes you can’t deal with it and sometimes you need to escape, and it’s one of these times when your lives Before and After collide sharply, because Ninette Kirschtein is standing out back of the building where your show was tonight. She’s smoking a cigarette, but promptly drops it when she sees you, and you choke out “ _Nettie_?!” before you can stop yourself.

She blinks at you. Once. Twice. “Marco are you _kidding_ me right now?!” she half-shrieks, stomping up to you and jabbing you in the chest with a finger, it’s a good thing she keeps her nails short, her face is twisted with anger and disbelief and she looks so much like her brother that it hurts. “You’ve been gone for the last six months because you’re _Captain goddamn America_?!” she hisses, and then “How the hell did this happen?”

“It’s a long story-”

“I bet! I can’t believe you two kept this from me!”

You hold up your hands placatingly, “No, no, no, Jean doesn’t know. It’s a secret.”

She frowns, crosses her arms. “...What do you mean Jean doesn’t know.” and the whole story spills out of your mouth, every bit of it, like blood from a wound, and it feels so good to get it out but it’s awful to see the look on her face, all shock and confusion and distress signals and you are so sorry. You’re so goddamn sorry. She gives you a hug when you finish, shorter than you remember- except of course she isn’t, you’re just taller, you don’t want to imagine how hard it’s going to be to interact with Jean when you’re so much bigger than you were, but at the same time you’ll take any awkwardness right now if it means you get to see him. ( _Captain America may not be a lovelorn kid, but Marco Bodt is_.)

As much as you’d love to but _can’t_ tell Jean, just somebody knowing that you’re behind the mask helps- even someone pissed off at you because you swore her to secrecy, especially from her brother. At least she’s someone to be honest with in the letters. ( _And, occasionally, when she shows up at one of your shows to appreciate the chorus girls again._ )

( _And the letters from Jean get less frequent, not much paper on the front, he warned you about this. The warning kinda doesn’t help when December rolls around, eight months of Captain America, and your only letter is one from Ninette saying “happy hanukkah you miserable disaster” and “it’s freezing up here don’t even talk to me” and “I’m worried about him too”_ )

January nineteen forty-one, nine months as Captain America, some idiot decides that you need to do a show in Europe for the troops. There's a lot of silence, awkwardness, and they just generally plainly don't like you one bit and you pretty much flee the stage because you didn’t want to do this and you’re showing up fit for duty but not fighting in front of these guys who have been getting shot at and it’s not right, it’s not right.

And there’s murmurs of consolation, that they’ve just been through a lot, that they’re tense, there was an attack a couple weeks ago. Lots of guys captured, most of the 104th got deci-

The 104th?

And then you’re off running for the tent where the SSR’s set up shop. Pyxis looks up when you burst in, opens his mouth to say something, but you raise a hand, “I need the list of casualties from Azzano. I just need one name, sir, Sergeant Jean Kirschtein from the 104th.”

He sighs, weary, and gives you a sad look. “I’ve written more condolence letters than I care to count today, but that name does sound familiar. I’m sorry.”

The world is ending.

You take a very deep breath, hands shaking. “What about the guys who got captured? Aren’t you staging a rescue mission?”

He shrugs helplessly. ‘If they’re still alive when we’ve pushed the line far enough forward, sure, we’ll pick ‘em up, but as is they’re forty miles behind enemy lines and we’d lose more men than we’d save.”

You can’t breathe, you can’t breathe, but you can see the base marked on the map behind him and maybe you can do some good. ( _And maybe Captain America will tragically go down in the ensuing battle, that would be okay._ ) “Yes sir. Can I be dismissed? I’ve got somewhere to be.”

Yu grab your jacket and a helmet and are about to hijack a car when you notice Kenny Ackerman fiddling with a plane. Perfect. You smash him up against the side of it by the jacket and demand, “Can you fly this thing?”

The answer is yes, so in a few minutes you’re in the air being handed a radio and okay, okay, this is fine. You can handle this. You grab a parachute. “I overheard Pyxis tellin’ you that that buddy of yours was dead.” Kenny says, calmly. “You still doing this?” You don’t answer. “Ah, of course you are.” He continues, before grabbing your sleeve. “Hey. My brother was in one of the units that got captured, so if you could just. Be on the lookout.”

“You got it, Ackerman. Nice flying with you.” You say, with a salute, as you jump out into the open air.

You pause just before you go in, just long enough to whisper a prayer- your mother always said you should if you had time, if you thought you might be about to die, six words and then you’re wrenching the door open and smashing your prop shield into the face of the first guard to confront you.

There are cages full of bedraggled looking soldiers, and your eyes scan for a familiar face but no, not here, and your stomach sinks to your shoes.You’ve gotta let these guys out, though, and there’s just this flicker of hope deep in your gut so the first guy out of the cage gets pulled aside and asked if he’s seen Jean Kirschtein. “Yeah, he got dragged up to medical. I don’t know what shape he’s in after that, but.” And you can breathe again. Okay. Alright. There’s a chance. “Hey, you his boy, then? Marco, I mean.”

You grin despite the situation, lift your shield a little higher. “Nah, can’t you see the outfit? I’m Captain America.” And then you spin, run down the hall in what you hope is the right direction.

The big indicator that you’ve found it is the guy who isn’t outfitted well enough to be a guard, holding a clipboard to his chest. The two of you look at each other for a second. And then you hear mumbling from the room he’s just come out of and rush past him, pull the door open- there’s a map on the wall, which you give a cursory glance, and there’s a table a few feet away, which you dash over to, because there’s Jean, it’s been ten months, oh god. There he is.

“-tein, Sergeant, 32558. Jean Kirschtein, Sergeant-” He’s mumbling, eyes unfocused, and he looks like he’s been through hell but he’s _alive_ , which is the important part. You can fix anything else.

You grab his shoulders, lean over him. “Jean! Jean, it’s me!” You whisper, urgently, and then grimace and tear the restraints over him clear off the table, fling them across the room. Something breaks. Oops.

“Marco?” The strained whisper goes right to your heart, but then you turn back and there are arms reaching for you that you grab instinctively, haul him up, and a smile like it’s been dark for a thousand years and there’s finally a sunrise. “Marco.” He says, again, leans forward a bit.

And despite everything wrong and the bad shape he’s in, you smile back, press your forehead to his. “God, I thought you were dead.” You murmur, and come to the realization that you’re shuddering with the force of your relief, despair you weren’t letting yourself feel rushing out of your head and your heart. The world isn’t ending after all.

“..I thought you were smaller.” He says, with a dazed shadow of his wry smirk, leaning on you heavily as you haul him to his feet. As you haul him in the direction of the exit, you can feel him get less wobbly, start walking under his own steam. “What happened?”

“I joined the army.” You tell him, with a breathless laugh that’s only partially sincere, and an explosion rocks the building.

He stumbles into a wall before giving you a look. He’s not amused, but, on the upside, looks awake and aware enough to not be amused. “S’it permanent?”

“So far!”

And the two of you find the way out eventually, but then there’s a practical chasm between you and it with a rickety bridge and on the other side is the doctor you saw earlier, who Jean stares at, looking nauseous and unstable and traumatized, and a larger man in a Hydra uniform. “Captain America!” He shouts, arms spreading wide. “I am a big fan of your films!”

The altercation that follows is brief, but you learn a few things- there is another supersoldier, he’s evil, he’s crazy, and he’s out for your blood. Oh, and his face peels off. Game on.

Except there goes the bridge, and you usher Jean up a set of stairs onto a level you might actually be able to get out from and there’s just this thin beam he walks out on, wobbling, and there’s another explosion which almost knocks him off and _shit holy shit_ the whole thing collapses and he has to jump for it, looking back across at you with big panicked eyes and visibly breathing hard. “There’s gotta be a rope or something!” He shouts over.

There’s no rope. You know there’s no rope. “Just go! Get outta here!”

“No, not without you!” His face is determined and angry and desperate and yeah, you know he isn’t going to leave without you. So, if you die here, so does he.

Which just means you cannot die under any circumstances.

You don’t pray, this time.

What you do is bend back a bar that might get in your way, back up, cast a grimace Jean’s way- he looks horrified, his face screaming _Marco don’t you dare_ , to which yours replies _You got a better plan?_

And then you jump.


	3. requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn."

Landing on the walkway where Jean’s waiting for you is easier said than done.

You still aren’t used to doing, y’know, _actual physical things_ in your new body, so you almost don’t make it, cling to the walkway, and Jean’s trying to drag you up but you’re heavier than he’s prepared for and he’s still shaky and weak from being experimented on for god only knows how long and the two of you almost fall off into the chasm until you manage to drag yourself up next to him and the two of you stay there for a second, breathless, and then he laughs and reaches out to kiss you hard and you give yourself a few heartbeats to enjoy it before pulling back and gasping out, “Okay, okay, now we run.”

The building starts collapsing right after you get out.

You look back, look at Jean, look at the other survivors, standing around looking worn down and befuddled. “Who’s the commanding officer?” You call out, looking around for somebody to come up with a plan. They give you blank looks, and beside you Jean starts snickering, and then it’s full-on laughing, more than a little hysterical, and he reaches out for your shoulder ten inches too low and you have to catch him as he nearly falls over.

“I think you’re in charge here, pal.” He says, when he’s caught his breath, smile wide and unsteady. Oh. You guess he’s right.

You’re still formulating your response when a Hydra tank pulls up in front of you and a man pops out of it and calls to you, “Hey, Captain, think we’ll be able to use this?”

You stare for a second, ignoring the calls of _”Bozado you crazy son of a bitch!”_ and _”Tell us you got Ackerman in there too, he got off somewhere!”_ resounding from the former prisoners. “Um.” You say, uncertainly, and spin a slow half-circle to take in the task you’ve got in front of you. You pull your radio out of your pocket, there’s a hole through it, oops, you’re getting back to base the slow way. “Uh, I. Okay. Anybody not injured, you’re walking. If you are, hop in that tank or a truck.” You call out.

And then you turn to Jean. “No.” He says, promptly, straightening his posture. “I’m sticking right by you, and if you think otherwise you’re out of your goddamn mind.” He starts walking, in very nearly the right direction, shouting, “Somebody get me a fucking gun!”

You sigh, follow after him, and feel the crowd move with you, letting the conversation wash over you.

”Ah, shit, Jinn, what the hell.”

“You said to get you a gun.”

“I didn’t mean _throw it at me_! I expect that shit from Bozado-”

“Fuck does that mean, Sarge?”

“It means you’re a _jackass_ , I thought that was clear.”

You all manage to get to a formerly-occupied town before some of the guys look like they’re about to fall over, and you realize belatedly that you shouldn’t use Jean as a scale of how much longer they can all keep going because the further you get from the wreck of the Hydra facility the stronger and more determined he looks, rifle in hand like if anybody moves toward him too fast they’re gonna get a bullet in the eye. You have to grab his shoulder to stop him just walking through the town and onward, feel your gut twist at the brief look of panic in his eyes. “Jean, we’re stopping.” You murmur, gently.

He shakes his head, sharply, rubs at his forearm- there are needle marks, your heart hurts -like he’s trying to slough off the skin. “No, no, I’m fine, I can keep going.” He protests, but doesn’t resist when you tug him toward the half-ruined church in the center of town where most of the boys are sleeping for the night- it’s got the most intact roof in the place.

You grab a  bowl of water- where did they get that? Who knows, somebody just shoves it into your hand, but anyway -and a scrap of cloth and drag Jean into a confessional. He laughs when he realizes where exactly you are, mumbles something that might have been a question of how many hail marys you think he has to do. You hush him and start cleaning scratches on his face and hands- they’re surprisingly healed, you thought he got a few of them during the escape, you guess you imagined that. “You’re safe, sweetheart.” You murmur, and he shudders and looks at the floor, but at least he looks a little less tense. It’s the little miracles.

You and the troops stumble back into camp sooner than you’d expected but later than you like, and everyone else _swarms_ around the lot of you, making all the former-prisoners uncomfortable, and Jean shouts, “Hey, let’s hear it for Captain America!” And grins at you, and you sigh and resign yourself to all the _people_ and at least there’s actually something for them to admire you about now.

So, it goes like this.

You put together your team- all guys who were important in the escape, Ral who says he’s gonna marry his sweetheart and have eight red-headed children when he gets home, Bozado who can’t take anything seriously, Schultz who takes everything *too seriously, Jinn who’s the only one who can keep everyone else on track, and the younger Ackerman, who, thank god, is surprisingly not a complete bastard. And Jean, of course. If he says yes. You think he’ll say yes.

You slide onto a barstool next to him, and he nods in the direction of the rest of the team. “So, are they all idiots or do you have to recruit a different crack team?” He asks, and then knocks back the fifth of whiskey in his glass. It’s glass who-knows-what-number, probably too many, but he’s been through a lot so you just sigh at him instead of giving him a disapproving look.

“So what about you? Ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” You ask, shooting for a lighthearted tone.

He snorts, shakes his head, and starts talking with his eyes fixed on the bar. “Hell no. That little guy from Brooklyn, who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him.” Your cheeks heat up, you can feel it, and he looks up at you, wiggling his eyebrows, “But you’re keeping the outfit, right?”

You snicker, and then lean in close enough to nudge his shoulder and whisper in his ear. “Didn’t know you had a thing for spandex.” He promptly chokes on his drink.

So, it goes like this.

You take down every Hydra base you can and you help Jean with the lingering trauma of his time as an experiment in their hands and you feel like you’re doing some good.

And one day you get news that the doctor that had Jean ( _Jaeger? Something like that_ ) is on a train in the mountains and if you can capture him you’ll be able to figure out what their leader, aptly named the Red Skull, has planned. So you and Jean zipline onto the train but then there’s a door closing between you, _no no no no no_ , and there’s a guy with a glowing blue Hydra gun that you know will dust you into atoms if it hits you and it’s all you can do to subdue him enough to get back through the door, toss a pistol to Jean- he’s out of ammo, what the hell, he’s so lucky he has you -and take out the guys cornering him. “I had ‘em on the ropes.”

“I know you did.” You reply with a breathless little laugh, because okay, okay, you’re both okay.

Or not.

Because the guy with the Hydra gun recovers remarkably fast and you’re spinning and blocking a direct hit with your shield and the shockwave sends you backwards and the side of the train car blows open and while you’re trying to get your breath back you hear Jean _snarl_ and out of the corner of your eye you see him pick up your shield where you dropped it and then you hear gunshots and another blast of blue energy and then-

No.

No no no no.

You’re up, too slow, too late, and throwing your shield and the guy goes _flying_ , and you’re running to the edge and oh, thank god. Jean’s clinging on to the train by a bar and he’s *alive, he’s alive, it’s okay, everything’s okay. “Grab my hand!” You shout, edging as close as you can without falling off yourself, and he reaches out.

And what happens next is in slow-motion.

Every single snowflake hitting your skin is clear. The bite of the wind. The creaking of metal. The slow, agonizing separation of the bar from the rest of the train, your hand and Jean’s grasping for each other, so close, so close, but-

And.

Then.

He.

Falls.

You hear your own voice screaming _”NO!”_ so loud you think you’ve damaged your vocal cords permanently and Jean’s screaming too, a wordless horrified sound that makes you want to jump straight after him but he’d hate you for that and you have work to do so you cling to cold metal and watch the most important person in the world fall out of your sight until there’s no trace of him.

You’re cold down to your core. ( _All the warmth has gone out of the universe. The world is ending in ice._ )

So, it goes like this.

You move through the next few days in a fog, Dr. Jaeger is being interrogated and everyone is getting things done and you curl up in your bunk at SSR headquarters and stare at the wall and don’t cry because you’re too empty for tears. You’ve hit the sort of grief that chokes everything around it and leaves you hollow and cold.

But you have to keep going. You have work to do. The Red Skull is going to destroy everything.

And you come up with the plan, and it’s this: you just walk in.

And the Red Skull, standing over you like he thinks he’s better, which he does but he isn’t, asks, “What makes you so _special_?”

And you just conjure up the most arrogant smirk you can manage and say, “Nothing. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.” And then smash him in the face with your shield.

And then he’s running for the big plane he’s going to destroy everything with, and you’re chasing after because you have to do this. You have to. ( _Just because you want to die doesn’t mean the whole world has to go with you._ )

And on the plane there’s a whole spiel about how the world will be better off once this is done and you can’t. You can’t deal with this. You’re _pissed_. You fling your shield out and it hits the glowing cube in the center of the room and there’s a shriek and the Red Skull grabs the cube and next thing you know he’s gone and the cube is melting through the floor.

It only takes you a second of looking at the controls and assessing the situation to know what you have to do. You pick up your radio, hear Pyxis’s strained greeting on the other end, and say, “I’m sorry, sir, I’m gonna have to put her in the water.”

It’s. It isn’t so bad. Really. You’ve been okay with dying a few times in your life, and none more than now because hey, how else are you ever going to see Jean again. And dying bravely, for a good cause, is what you’ve wanted since you were little. But it’s still hard, the acknowledgement that you could have decades more- even though you don’t _want_ them -and they’re all about to be buried in a watery grave and _oh god they won’t be able to bury your body you are supposed to be returned to the earth and your mother would be appalled._

But there’s nothing you can do about that now.

When the plane hits the water you slide out of your seat and curl up under the control panel.

The water starts covering you fast.

You may not be able to be buried properly, but you can do something right, six words, the water is getting higher, you should get out so you can have another minute but you’re too cold to move, but then the water’s over your head so you just finish internally, and it’s so cold, it’s so cold, at least Jean got to go fast. But then, at least you’re going faster than your mother did.

You release the last bit of air in your lungs.

Close your eyes.

…

…

…

Open them?

There’s a baseball game playing on the radio, and you think, for a second, that that’s kinda weird and not what you’d expect from Heaven. Then again, you recognize the game, you went to it with Jean for a birthday years ago, and okay, sure, that’s a good memory so he should be telling you to get up and enjoy eternity with him any… second… now…

Now?

No.

You pry your eyes open, sit up. The room is clean, sterile, and as unfamiliar as the girl that slips through the door. Your stomach drops. She tries to tell you you’re _in a recovery room in New York, Captain, everything’s fine_ , and you hold up a hand. Your stomach’s burning with anger and disappointment and confusion. “Where am I really?”

“I-I don’t understand-” And that’s it, you bolt, go through the wall into what’s clearly a military base, probably Hydra, damn it damn it damn it, and hit a few guys on your way out and-

Oh, god.

You find yourself outside in what almost, _almost_ looks like it could’ve been Times Square in another universe, big color screens and noise and oh god, oh god, you’re shaking, what the hell is going on what the hell is going on *what the hell is going on.

“Captain Bodt!” Comes a shout, and you whirl around to see a big blonde man with bushy eyebrows standing in front of a mess of cars, hands raised placatingly.

You’re shaking. “Who the hell are you?”

He steps forward, you step back. “I’m Director Erwin Smith, of SHIELD. What you knew as the SSR in your day. You’ve been asleep, Cap, for almost seventy years.” The bottom drops out of your stomach. “I know this is a lot to deal with-”

“It’s just-” You interrupt, without meaning to say it, spinning in a slow circle to take everything in. Seventy years? This probably is Times Square, then, holy shit. Oh god. You didn’t want this, you wanted to go out with a bang, see Jean again, not have to deal with anything else. You didn’t want to be Captain America anymore. “It’s just, I had a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand there we are! The fourth chapter is my homage to the Marvel cutscenes, a wrap-up of something from this story (cough cough JeaN KIRSCHTEIN) and a preview of the next one. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for that last update. 
> 
> (This fic has a soundtrack, by the way, http://8tracks.com/24bookworm68/good-becomes-great)


	4. the asset and the ballerina

It’s cold. It’s cold and you can’t-

You don’t know where you-

Your arm h-

Snow. Snow and blood and the sensation of being moved and pain, pain spooling out from everywhere and eating you alive.

Blink.

There’s a lab and there’s the sound of a saw- _PAIN_ -and you lash out and there’s a voice you know enough to be terrified of it, “Sergeant, the procedure has already started,” as if you’re the unreasonable one here and _get off me get off me GET OFF ME GET OFF_ -

Blink.

( _Jean Kirschtein. Sergeant. 32258_.)

You remember… You remember constellations, tracing them out, mumbling _vega gemini orion_ \- “Put the arm on, we will test it out before we wipe him,” - _cassiopea leo aquila_ \- Your arm feels weirdly heavy and when you look it’s metal but you can still use it to _break somebody’s godawful nazi neck_ , it turns out. - _corvus ursula major musca. “I’m pretty sure most of those aren’t actually in my freckles, Jean.” “Shh, you’re ruining the moment.”_ -They strap you into a chair, kicking and scratching as well as you can but you are cold all over and hurting and not strong enough and then your head explodes into smoldering fire and the taste of metal in your mouth.

( _Jean Kirschtein… Sergeant? 32…7? 5… 5…_ )

You’re forgetting… Something… Where you are. What happened? Someone should… _Marco_ should be here.

Wait, no. You went off to war. Marco should _not_ be here, under any circumstances.

No, you were right the first time, because Marco came out of the dark, bigger than you remembered and more solid than anythi-

“It didn’t work, try again.”

Needles shoved between your brain cells and _screaming screaming screaming_.

( _Jean… Kirschtein? What was… What were the other words. There were other words._ )

You are sitting in a big empty room and there is a skinny boy with freckles sitting next to you- _Marco_ , you think fiercely, not sure why you need to be so sure of it. You don’t know why you thought the room was empty, there are wisps of smoke all over, but they’re being drawn toward a crackling hole in the wall, and you reach your hand up to catch them as they go, and things flicker through your mind, but then a second later you can’t remember what they were.

Brown eyes and freckles and a big wide smi- Your sister( _who?_ )’s laugh a- Baking bre- Gunpowder and the Hydra guy went d- Strawberries in the summer h-

If it would j-

Nothing’s staying sti-

You can’t-

Marco. Marco’s still there, if you remember nothing else you remember Marco and you can hold on to him except the second you try he crumbles under your fingers, dust swept away and wait what were you trying to hold onto again what was going on what-

What-

What?

( _Who?_ )

**THE END**

**SERIES TO BE CONTINUED IN**

_**TO BE UNMADE** _

The room is sterile. It’s sterile and bright and there are bunks, where little girls are stirring, and you find yourself sitting up, strangely achy. You don’t know where you are.

You slip off your bunk, see a girl with a brown ponytail standing on the one under it. “I’m Hanna.” She whispers, confidentially, as the two of you wander with the rest towards the blank white door, everything is white, the walls and the door and the floor and the scrubs you and the rest of the girls are dressed in. It reminds you of something, but you can’t grasp onto what.

“Mikasa,” You whisper back to Hanna, twisting at your hair nervously. You don’t know what this is about and you don’t know where you are and you want your parents ( _blood and fire and don’t go there, don’t go there, you don’t want to know_ ) and you don’t know where they are. You try to conjure up images of their faces but they don’t quite solidify. It’s weird.

( _You’re choking on smoke, calling out “Mama? Mama?” and clutching your broken arm to your chest and you can see your father’s body in the rubble and you’re stumbling and the glass is cutting your foot and there’s so much blood, there’s so much blood, red red red, red is the color of pain, you can’t get out, you’re surrounded by agony and it’s so thick it’s clogging up your lungs, swirling with the smoke until you can’t tell one from the other._ )

Wait, what were you thinking about?

You don’t really know.

Your name is Mikasa Ackerman, and you’ve been training to be a ballerina. You’re going to perform with the Russian ballet, but first you have to serve your country, as all have to serve their country. That’s why you’re here. You’re here to be of use. You’re going to be the best version of the you that is necessary.

You and the other girls all sit down, elbows and knees bumping. You wait, and you wait, and eventually the girls start whispering stories, comparing- some were in the circus, some were farmers, some were politicians’ daughters, some were ballerinas like you, though you don’t remember them- but it’s a big country. They are all here, like you, to serve.

A man walks in in a military uniform, smiles at all of you.

“Hello girls. Welcome to the Black Widow program.”

Your name is Mikasa Ackerman, and you used to be a butterfly, and this is the place where they will make you a spider.


End file.
